Caregivers Corner, Treatments for Advanced Disease, Results, Side Effects, etc. (Part 6)

Antonia , from what I have read doing the thermography is a good thing . I just read some where it takes nine years for a mammogram to pick up some breast cancers . But with your family history I certainly would have Braci testing done. I went into some of the Dr Snuffy Myers videos and the numbers are actually over 40 % of men with Braci in family will develop Prostate cancer.
I was I contact by letter to a very great urologist out in BC by the name of Dr Larry Goldenberg. I had saved a newspaper article he wrote back in 2014. I know if Dave had him for a Dr there never would have been a question of not screening. He knows that Dre and psa screening saves lives .I had sent him a registered letter and he sent a wealth of Information as well a personal note. I very comendable Dr indeed . It still blows my mind that the medical community can get away with murder .I am still going to do everything thing I can to lobby for change .
I have been very emotional lately and missing Dave so much.i find it so unbelievable that he is not here. It was our month of celebrations coming up we would have been celebrating Dave's 65 th B/D and first old age pension check . Our 44th wedding anniversary a week after his birthday .Our son in law is the week before Dave's and Dave's dad's was the week after our Anniversary. So April is Brad on the 1st , Dave on the 8th , our anniversary on the 15th and Dad's birthday on the 22nd.His dad died on May 2nd 2014 at the good old age of 94 the day after Dave had laser prostate surgery .
I think every family has a month that is jam packed with special days . Tomorrow I am hosting Easter dinner for 8 adults and my 4 grandkids. It's the first big event with out Dave. I will be happy when the food is cooked and on the table .Well HAPPY EASTER 🐰 HAPPY SPRING 🌷

You are so right aboiut "get away with murder...or at the very least manslaughter. When I feel strong enouigh, I will pull Don's records where this fidiot of a GP did not think it unusual or worth of further investigation when Don's PSA shot up from 1.7 to 4.0. I miss him very much. He would have loved the new place and the fact the old place is nearing completion. It is all very sad. March is our special month. I am not doing anything for Easter as my daughter and the BF are working (both are in the restaurant business and she works full time for Lululemon as well). We would normally have had a turkey and a pretty table setting and I would have had just veggies as I don't eat flesh of any kind. Anyway, babbling on...wishing you well over there. Lots of hugs and HAPPY SPRING back to you. xoxox (and Beth and Susan, and Nepol and Krissie and Quincy, Mel, Margot, Lisa, Jerry et al.)

Beth , Gary and Family;
I hope you have a great visit and holiday. It is so nice that Gary Mom can come and stay with you. .I didn't realize they had run out of options for treatments. You are fight however Gary is a real fighter !
I hope you.can get your medical records printed off soon. I trust them not even with that task . My sister had a medical malpractice suite because they ruined her leg and it ended up having to be fused. But at the start her xray showed a giant cell noncancerous tumor that was behind her knee cap and feeding off the fermour.bone. The xray disappeared for 5 years until she dropped the law suit. It showed up after and.they said it was miss filed?? I still think even with Dave's notes that some things were not printed out..I don't even have the paper from when you start at the clinic and list your family history . On that it said about Dave's Mom having the breast cancer as well as his maternal grandfather cancer with a ? Because we didn't know what kind of cancer he died with .His aunt even has breast cancer. If.you were a female with a history of cancer like that you would be tested for cancer lots. I think Dave's cancer.was Braci.driven .It is awful that Dr's that we trust with our live are so blatantly disrepectful of doing basic things so we can live longer and if disease strikes to catch it at a place and time were the survival are greater and dare I say curable! !
Yes I haven't seen posts from alot of people and I miss them to. I know it's a struggle for alot of you .I can most certainly empathize with what this is like for you all. It is not easy .
Well I will say good night and enjoy each and every day XOXO 🌷🐥🐣🌷💙

Hi K (hug). You comforted me at the very beginning and here you are again, my dear friend. Thank you for these words. It is so tough. What is happening to your sweetie? I hope Myers is beating it to a pulp. I can only see a number from September, 2015. Hoping the taxotere worked xoxo

The taxotere is working, but not well enough. His cancer is definitely sensitive to the taxotere -- he had a month-long interruption while he tried to beat a stubborn infection that really knocked him down, and during that time his PSA doubled (so it was in the high 700's). So it is doing something, just not enough (since he's still in the 400's).

And it comes at a price. I think we're also up against the cachexia you fought, although no one has used that term. But at last week's appointment, they told us he'd lost 10 pounds in the preceding 13 days. And that was from a VERY low base weight (he previously lost 10 pounds in one week while fighting the infection, and never regained them, and had been at 6% body fat before this loss). He's so thin, I worry when I touch him that it hurts him because the edges of his bones are so sharp and seem to be just below his paper-thin skin.

So he's feeling pretty lousy, especially right now (he is winding down a bout of pneumonia), and is tired and weak.

Myers was hopeful though when we saw him last month. There's a new drug (Lynparza) that's been officially declared a breakthrough, which is something like a fast track to widespread usage. I think officially it's only been proven for breast cancer patients, but early early results are so impressive that the U.S. Food & Drug Administration declared it a breakthrough, which allows it to be prescribed for other, not-yet-officially-approved cancers, including prostate cancer. The rub is that you need to have a certain genetic defect, and we don't know yet if Ted has it. Although Myers thinks its very likely Ted has that genetic defect, based on the atypical ways his cancer has behaved. PCa patients with that defect who were given this drug had an 88% response rate, which of course is near miraculous for a cancer drug. So we're now keeping our fingers crossed that Ted will turn out to have this nasty genetic defect!

I originally wished you didn't have to leave the home you'd shared with Don, but since you do, I guess I'll now settle for hoping that all the activity associated with the change is a blessing.

Good morning, Beth:

It took me a minute, but I'm glad I found you here. I'll come back and post what we hear from the doc today.

Until then, we will celebrate life!

Welcome, Cateydid. On this thread you will find some stories of incredible love and devotion of wives and girlfriends who are willing to do almost anything for the guys they love. You'll also find people who understand more of what you're going through than those around you. The thread goes quiet when things are going better, then fires back up when someone is in crisis. It's amazing how one can feel so close to someone who you've never met in person. Hope today's appointment goes well.

Joe called the doc's office at half past dark this morning....described the 3 inch long nodules in his belly.....when he disconnected I asked if the bumps were where he'd gotten the Degarelex a month or so ago.......ooopppppsssss......we forgot.

He said his bone pain is much better tonight...hoping he sleeps well.

Good morning Beth good to see you bumped this up it saddened me looking through old posts top to bottom but I guess it's time to start anew and try to help newer people fighting this crappp our older friends who have lost and moved on , are probably just getting the nightmare behind them and this is the last place they want to visit,but I am sure this corner helped them in the fight stay safe NEPOL

That's the way Catey. One day at a time! Gary is also doing better today. Still way short of breath but able to eat some and shower.
Tomorrow we go in for blood work. We got through Mon and Tues.
Praying February is a good month here in our "corner" of the world.
@Nepol. I also reread some posts and was reminded of some of our lost brothers and our sisters who endured the loss of their soul mates.
As teamchris said, there are no statistics here. We may have never met, but we share a bond forged through compassion for one another and the struggle that unites us.
Beth

Beth, you're pretty amazing! How you do what you do and still manage to work is a mystery to me. Hope Gary continues to feel better and you both have a good night's sleep.
Beth

Happy Friday Eve, All: Joe is in the spare room again tonight. This time due to right side chest pain. He's been getting it off and on for a month or so. Onc didn't seem the least bit concerned: said, "Oh, that's weird" when Joe told him almost two weeks ago. No other symptoms. No shortness of breath, arm pain, etc. The pain is relieved by moving and slow, deep beathing. Doc did say he has an enlarged lymph node in his trachea, and two new growths in his right lung. I know so little about this journey:if the growths in his lung are prostate cancer, could they cause this kind of pain.....or could this be GERD?

I hear him pacing....and he's promised to let me know if it gets worse...

I work tomorrow, so he told me to go on to sleep......as if 😕

@ Catey...I sure hope Joe got some rest and stopped hurting, which in turn let you get some too. I know one good night sleep sure made a huge difference in my day today! I get "muddle brain" without enough sleep.
@Beth..thank you sweet heart. I sure appreciate your support and kind words.
@ Teamchris..I emailed you Sue. Hang tough, my dear.
Beth